The Meaning of Friendship...

From Left: Me, Angela, Kim, Heidi, Amy

Last night, I was lucky enough to get together with a lot of my favorite gals I went to high school with.

Oh...didn't you know that?
That we all still stay in touch?
That we still like each other enough to get together...IM on facebook, read each others blogs, email, and send pictures.

Well, we do.

And the older I get the more I can look at each and every one of these amazing women (and the one's who could not make it last night) and realize how lucky I am to have them in my life. We were gathering because Heidi is in town...and we're saying good-bye to Amy as she's off to Hungary this week to start a new adventure...

From Left: The same as above...only a totally different view...you gotta really get us from each side to appreciate everything we have to offer.

Each one has been there through every major transition I've ever had since High School...each one offers their own gifts and support...and each one has my back.

Still.

No matter how far away we are or how often we get together.

With the exception of Amy...I met all the other gals when I started attending the High School...Amy and I began to be Pal's in Junior High. I can remember when starting the High School that combined both of the Junior High's in town, that I was worried that I wouldn't have any friends...and then Kim and I started talking one day...and that was that. This group of girls, most of whom had been attending school together for many years before just absorbed me and became the best friends I could ever ask for. I found myself thrust in the middle of some very funny, intelligent, and beautiful women indeed.

Me after plopping down in the broken chair...which almost resulted in me catapulting backwards off the porch...

We had adventures galore, resulting in a million and one stories...stories of the groups of us together, and memories of the times we spent in the solitary company of each other. Of course, there were disagreements between us, which is just bound to happen between women in a large group...but as time goes on, it seems as if that has faded into the past too...

Along with our youth...

hahaha...just kidding ladies! Actually, someone posted a comment on facebook that we all look the same and it looks as if we're at school waiting at the bus stop...

When you have a group of people like this in your life, I think it keeps you perpetually young.

As I look at these pictures...the happy smiling faces of each and every one of us, my eyes fill with tears. I know how insanely lucky I am to retain each and every friendship...and those of the people that couldn't be with us. No matter how our lives have twined in and out of one another's we know who each other are and who we have been in only the way that someone you've known longer than you haven't can...we know each others stories. I know stories of love, happiness, and heart ache...I know the obstacles that we've each faced and moved through, some better than others...and as I downloaded the pictures from last night, my heart caught in my throat when I noticed Angela's arm thrown casually around my shoulders, her hand holding onto my arm...

It's because of these women, that I also know a fierce love and a sense of belonging.

Thank you ladies...for everything.